Well, here the final chunk I have any current plans on doing?  Anyone willing
to offer ideas or take up the story?

HTG

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Bid and sell for free at http://auctions.yahoo.com

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Downtown Tokyo, 1992

	"I am not certain this is a good idea Tanaka-san." the office lady said nervously as the bank manager concluded his call, "Do we not need approval from Singapore before we sell?"

"Fujiko-chan, Fujiko-chan," Tanaka said dismissivly as he leaned back in his chair and ignored the faint rumble, "I thought you realized that would be a formality at best.

	*thoom*

	"If FSB wasn't interesting in selling that place," he continued, "they wouldn't have ordered the place brought up to code, let alone refurbished it like that.  Now run along and get my coffee."

	*Thoom*

	Tanaka was happy as the OL scurried off.  He had to admit he was more than a little angered when the foreign bank was named co-executor of the Tendo estate (he never did figure out how or by whom _that_ was arranged), but when those gaikokujin idiots simply _sat_ on that much suburban Tokyo real estate for a solid decade he was fit to be tied.  But now it seemed like someone down there had an attack of common sense, so with a few days at the most official sanction to sell the old dojo would be sent over and he'd have a massive commission from the sale that would be finalized before the Fax paper cooled.

	*THOOM*

	"Earthquake?!?" Tanaka gasped, as the rumbling became impossible to miss.  It feel wrong though, more like the sound and feel of a wrecking ball than the all-too-common tectonic shifts that plagued the Pacific Rim.

	*_THOOOOOOM_*

	The executive stared in utter disbelief as the wall to his office exploded inward before an attractive purple-haired Chinese girl in rose and lavender silks.  She stepped through the new entrance and beckoned an older Japanese man in a gi and four teenagers in Chinese clothing through.

	"<What are you _doing_ you maniac?>" the blue-black haired girl that was flanking Miss Wrecking Ball hissed as they moved to guard the hole.

	"<Getting the man's attention, Akane.>" the Chinese girl softly replied in a matter-of-fact tone.

	"<You're scaring him!>" Akane observed, somewhat annoyed at this overt breach of decorum.

	"<Which is a bad thing because?>" noted a slightly older girl with short brown hair and a calculating look as she passed them.

	Tanaka looked immediately at the older man in the faint hope that he was running the show and could be reasoned with.  Instead his face fell as the man (and his son) looked almost as confused as he while the oldest girl approached him calmly.

	"Please excuse the intrusion sir," the rather kindly looking young woman said, "but I believe we have important business to discuss and your secretary said you weren't taking appointments."

	Tanaka began edging his hand towards the button that would summon the bank's security personnel, but the arrival of over a score of guards proved his intention redundant.

	Seconds later, it was clear such actions would have been futile as well.

	The two men, suddenly confronted with something they knew how to deal with, moved faster than Tanaka could hope to follow as they sent uniformed men sprawling... but the two youngest girls moved faster than he could even see against those who went for the allegedly easier targets.

	Tanaka was certain it was sheer luck that enabled three of the guards to get past the Chinese girl and rush the two least martial seeming intruders... for all the good that did them.  The short-haired girl's movements could be followed (with effort) as she swept the feet from under one, downed the other with an axe-kick, and knocked the first man halfway across the room as he got to his feet.  The last guard tried grabbing the utterly inoffensive young woman in the hope that the others would at last pause in their rampage; but she deftly sidestepped, poked him in the back of his neck, and caught him one armed before his snoring form could crash into the floor.

	The executive was too busy hyperventilating and pressing himself into the back of his chair to notice the oldest girl's chiding glance at two of her companions (who simply looked back innocently), but he began whimpering as she set the peacefully sleeping guard down and approached his desk while pulling some papers out of a carrying case.

	"Tanaka-san, my name is Tendo Kasumi," she began in her most reassuring voice as she produced a Japanese passport with a recent PRC exit visa, "and I was told that you are co-executor of my family's property in the Nerima district...."

******

Nerima District, Tokyo:

	Akane looked around at the beautiful dojo, smiling in spite of her aches and fatigue.  She remembered how it was a decade past; the duckie sign on her door with her name in Romaji, the halls she and her sisters chased each other through, and the dojo where her father instructed her in the fundamentals of The Art as her mother looked on.  Even the subtle imperfections from the recent construction couldn't spoil her mood.

	The sight of her archrival fending off attempts by her psuedo-fiance to clear her plate however....

	"Why can't you at least _eat_ like a normal person Ranma?" Akane snapped, distracting Ranma long enough for Shan Pu capture and break his chopsticks with her own.

	"HEY!"

	"And all you're doing is encouraging him Shan Pu." Akane continued as the purple-head stuck her tongue out at him, "You fight that hentai more than you fight me!"

	"<He starts-> *sigh* Him is starting all fights." Shan Pu said only a little defensively, "Ranma still mad from when Shan 
Pu hand him head."

	"YOU DID NOT!" Ranma barked while his father remained carefully silent (between the fact that panda's are mute and the amount of pounding he received the last time he berated his son for letting 'mere women' defeat him he felt it was best to stay out of it, besides neither of them were guarding their plates anymore).

	 "And who won last night against both o' you?" the boy continued.

	"You cheated." Akane muttered, recalling the sparring sessions they inaugurated the dojo with once they finally settled in.

	"You is getting better." Shan Pu said sincerely.  As annoying as it was to get caught napping, it was a refreshing change for her to fight an opponent her age she could not, in all frankness, play like a sitar.  Especially one with skill approaching hers and a capacity for absorbing and improvising techniques that left her breathless.

	#Of course, the cute buns might have something to do with that last part.# she thought while suppressing a sigh, #Damned shame he's already betrothed to one of these three... speaking of which.#

	"Mmmph." Tendo Nabiki chirped joyously as she shambled down the stairs wearing a bleary expression (complete with toothbrush hanging out of her mouth) and a nightshirt thrown on as an afterthought.

	"Oh dear." Kasumi observed as she gathered the dishes, "You really shouldn't sprit-walk all night when you need to get up in the morning, Nabiki.  I don't think it's restful at all."

	Ranma blinked in confusion and curiosity at the two elder 
Tendo siblings, one smiling innocently and the other first widened her eyes in shock then groaned as she realized how much her poker face slips this time of morning.

	"<Might as well tell him, Nabiki.>" Shan Pu advised as her best friend sank into the open cushion, "<He'll be family inside of a year anyway.>"

	"Alright." Nabiki said as if conceding defeat in an old argument, "Ranma-kun, I already told you I studied under some Mistresses of Venerable Lore back at Joketsuzoku."

	"So you read a lotta old books, what's the big deal?" Ranma asked with a shrug before noticing the ice blue flame hovering above Nabiki's extended finger.

	"A more... accurate translation of that title would be ArchMage." Nabiki said conversationally, the concentration helping to rouse her as she repressed the impulse to make the flame grow or wave it under his nose, "I picked up a few parlor tricks over the years, but I was hoping to keep them quiet for now."

	"Uhh, sure." Ranma said as he edged back nervously.

	"Well, I suppose that would be reasonable Nabiki-chan." Kasumi observed as she reentered the room carrying four satchels, "After all, you really shouldn't scare your classmates on the first day of school."

	"Nani?" observed two voices in unison.

******

	"Why Akane stay down there?" Shan Pu asked as she glanced down from the fence at two of her quasi-siblings while the youngest tugged at the collar of her brand new school uniform, "Nabiki no too good up here, but you is more wanting practice."

	"_I'm_ not going to run around up there so everyone can see my panties." Akane said, looking up at the two in simple Chinese garb (Shan Pu's admittedly being the best non-formal wear she brought), "Unlike _some_ people, I have my dignity."

	"You is having complex," Shan Pu muttered, too intent on practicing her conversational Japanese to notice her volume, "is much different thing."

	"That's 'You have a complex, there is a big difference.'" Nabiki corrected with a slight smile while Akane glared at them both.

	Ranma glanced at the goings on and simply snickered, comforted by the realization that two tomboys (whom, incidentally, he had to go nearly all-out against to avoid getting clobbered by) and a creepy witch were ordinary enough to squabble over petty annoyances.  #Nowhere near as weird as Oyaji always said women were,# Ranma mused, #and Akane _is_ kinda cute.#

	"*sigh* You're all going to embarrass me in front of everyone, aren't you?" Akane groaned as she considered ignoring them all, "The least you could have done is borrow one of our uniforms and _try_ to act like a normal student Shan Pu."

	The amazon in question simply rolled her eyes and sighed before meeting Akane's to explain her reasoning.  "<Ignoring the fact that those clothes don't fit right, I don't look _or_ sound remotely Japanese,>" she said in her native tongue, "<so I'll stick out like a sore thumb no matter which garb I wear.  
Besides, it's better to come off as a fierce barbarian from whom anything can be expected than a tame one that can be safely mocked all things considered.>"

Nabiki considered making a counter-argument, but she couldn't find any real hole in her logic before something in the air caught her attention.  Shan Pu lifted her head simultaneously as the unmistakable scent of approaching rain penetrated the stinking city air.  She glanced at the Jusenkyo victim ahead of her while he looked back cluelessly, then abruptly leapfrogged him and ran down the fence toward the school.

	"Shan Pu race!" she called back as an afterthought.

	"Kono..." Ranma growled as he regained his balance and rose to the challenge.

	"Hopeless, _both_ of them hopeless" Akane grumbled as she took off after them.  She wasn't interested in outracing either, noway unuh nosiree bob, she just wanted to not be later to class than those embarrassments (yeah, that's it).

******

	"Did you hear about the old Tendo place?"

	"I wonder who bought it?"

	"Wasn't there rumors about some sorta sex-craft ninja cult?" 

	"I thought I saw a blue-haired gaijin with a weird staff thingie"

	"... weird thirteen year old living alone...."

	"... that doitujin executive, Ingoru-something...."

	"... that necromancer with the messed-up arm I saw on TV...."

	"... and her two boyfriends...."

	Kuno Tatewaki stood impassively as the common crowd near the gates of Furinkan High School gossiped over the reconstruction and seeming occupation of a long abandoned family plot.  He was of a better breed than they and knew petty rumormongering to be beneath him, but he was possessed of enough curiosity to seek out any unknown faces in the throng of uniformed students.  Therefore he may well have been the first to see the black-haired, red-shirted figure running along the top of the fence at a mildly impressive rate and somersault over the whole of the crowd to bound into the doors seconds before the rain began.

	The crowd was so startled by that display that they didn't notice the soft rain.  Indeed, they almost failed to notice the purple-haired girl launch herself into a triple-axle from the same take-off point, land in a smooth bow, and jog into the school herself.

	"... the Flying Gurashenzu?" someone in the crowd theorized.

Kuno looked back on the surprised crowd and noticed a short girl eel her way through smoothly.  As she seemed unfamiliar and was headed straight for him he felt in appropriate to question her about the strange acrobats that had just entered.

	"Hold-" he began as he drew his shinai from his kendo practice garb and swung it down to bar her path just as she slipped into view.

	The next thing knew, he was pulled halfway off balance by something that held his wrist in a grip of iron and the bottom of a woman's shoe obscured his field of vision.  

	"-kohai, I would speak with thee." Kuno concluded before his position sank in.  He didn't _think_ anyone struck him unconscious but he was unaware anyone had moved.  He was considering possible reasons for him to be in this position when his hand was released and his assailant(?) bowed politely.

	"Gomenasai sampai," the blue-black haired girl said as she blushed intensely (she didn't have as much reason to do so as she thought, Kuno couldn't see past her shoe to her panties and the student body was too amazed at her speed to notice), "reflexes."

	"Formidable...." Tatewaki mused as he held the remains of his shinai and observed how it was broken like a rotted chopstick at the hilt.

	"You haven't changed a bit Kuno-chan." observed a feminine voice behind the kendoist.  Tatewaki's reflexes took over and proved rather serviceable as he spun around to strike down the one who had somehow come upon him unnoticed, but since the weapon was missing it's entire length beyond the handle the textbook swing was rather pointless.

	"Who are you, transferee, who speaks to me in such a familiar manner?" Tatewaki demanded imperiously of the girl in a new Furinkan uniform that stood with a faintly amused expression on her face as he stuck the handle into his belt, "But hold, is it not proper to give one's own name first?  I am-"

	"Kuno Tatewaki, 17-sai." the brown haired girl interrupted while her eyes twinkled in amusement, "Also known as Tacchi and The Sword of the Undying Sun.  Eldest child of the richest family in the neighborhood.  Wanted to be a samurai when he grew up.  I would think you'd remember _me_ of all people."

	"... jilted girlfriend... missing fiancee... mother of his child...." went the whisperings of the crowd.

	Kuno simply frowned as he leaned in closely too peer at the girl's face.  "Thy features doth bring forth images of the past," he mused, "but I cannot claim to have taken true note of thee."

	"*sigh* Tendo Nabiki, second grade, about your age, kind of pudgy, talked you out of your lunch every day?" the new girl summarized in attempt to jog his memories.

	"_Tendo_ Nabiki?" Kuno exclaimed. "Thee and thine did vanish from thy home on a great voyage when I was but a youth.  All did think thee dead!"

	Nabiki simply shook her head sadly at first and turned aside.  

"Our parents took us on a training trip into the mountains about ten years back." the girl explained in an introspective voice somehow loud enough to carry, "One thing lead to another while we trained and next thing we know we were seeing the sights in China... there was a landslide... some women from a local village dug us out but it was too late for my parents.  After we recovered, Kasumi-oneechan decided it was out duty to reopen the family dojo, so here we are."

	As Nabiki allowed a tear to fall from her eye, the background conversation took a tone of pity leavened only lightly with speculation on the identities of the more flamboyant arrivals.  She finally looked up to see the reaction of her childhood meal ticket and was somewhat surprised by the astonishment on his face.

	"That... that exquisite huntress... was thy sister Akane?" Tatewaki babbled, "And the graceful angel which preceded her, surely some scholar among the peasants which pulled thee from the rubble come to learn among us."  With that thought he pulled out a blank scroll, an inkstone, and a brush to take down his thoughts as the rest of the crowd edged past him.

******

	"Poor girl," muttered Yuka as she and Sayuri stared at the scene in the lunchroom, "We should have warned her."

	"Un." her lifelong companion nodded, somewhat speechless at the situation their long-lost first-grade playmate was trapped in.

	"Kuno-sempai please," Akane said as graciously as she could, her smile obviously fraying around the edges while she gently tried to tug her hand away, "I am grateful for your attention and the roses are nice, but the poetry reading _really_ isn't necessary...."

	"Fair One," Tatewaki protested as he swept her into his arms, "such gestures are only pale reflections of thy beauty.  Indeed, my adoration of thee would drive me to the ends of the earth, and I must give thanks to the gods that your love has brought you to me."

	Even with her face pressed against his chest, it was obvious from the trembling limbs and throbbing veins on the exposed portions of her head that her self control was being held together by the thinnest of threads.  Only an iron will coupled with a vow to herself not to discredit the family name kept Akane from maiming the highborn upperclassman as she struggled to master her tongue enough to speak without calling down maledictions upon his head in Chinese.

	Suddenly, she fell free as Kuno was grabbed from behind, shaken like a rag doll, and slammed into the wall with more force than strictly needed (a few times).  "Only once warn Idiot Stick 
Boy," Shan Pu hissed as she gripped the taller man's throat, "Akane sworn sister to warrior of Joketsuzoku.  _No_ male touch so if she not want, most of all weak stupid male like you!"

	Tatewaki gazed at her for several moments before his brain registered the restricted flow from his cartiroid arteries and he passed out.  Shan Pu tossed him aside casually as she turned around to face the astonished crowd.  She repressed a sigh at Akane's mortified expression but the overall effect was as she had hoped after a morning of unfailing politeness to all save the boys who had crowded her during 'home-room' assured all concerned that she wouldn't go on any _unprovoked_ rampages.  Now it was clear that, if nothing else, she and hers were not to be trifled with.

	"Wow, she's cool" said Sayuri, more than a little impressed with any willing to stand up to the overbearing headcase.

	And she wasn't alone.

******

	"Hold." Tatewaki Kuno said as he stared at the ceiling lights moving past.

	"Kuno *pant* sempai?" grunted a frail, rather gaunt boy with candles strapped to he head as he dragged the kendoist to the infirmary.

	"Gosunkugi, did the fair one named Shampoo not claim kinship to both the Tendos and the tribe called the Joketsuzoku?"

	Gosunkugi Hikaru brought himself back from the fantasy world involving him, Akane, and considerable amounts of cooking oil in order to affirm the upperclassman's observations.

	"Excellent," Kuno replied, "I would know about the courtship rituals of this people, in order to best demonstrate my adoration for this purple-tressed enchantress from the West,"

	"Y-you mean you're giving up on Akane already?" Gosunkugi said, hoping against hope.

	"Nay!" Kuno proclaimed, "Shampoo's exotic grace.  Akane's innocent gentleness.  To deny either of them my favors would be the height of selfishness.  I would have them _BOTH_!!"

	And outside, predictably, the thunder rolled.

******

	Kasumi couldn't help but feel a little guilty as she browsed among the antique book selection of the herbalist shop.  She was supposed to be shopping for dinner, but spotting a translation of Po Shin's original medical treatise had been too much of a temptation for her to resist.  Still, it proved rather incomplete and somewhat inaccurate upon closer examination so she replaced it with a sigh.

	"Excuse me miss," said a voice behind her, "may I see that?"

	Kasumi gasped and wheeled about, noticing the handsome bespectacled man behind her.  As mediocre as her combat skills were by Joketsuzoku reckoning, it took significant skill to come upon her unnoticed like that.  Still, she smiled politely and handed the old tome in question to the tall man.

	"Amazing," the young doctor muttered, "I didn't think there was another copy of this."

	"It's a poor copy I'm afraid," Kasumi said mostly to herself, "the current edition's much more complete."

	"I thought my teacher had the only surviving trans- you mean you have the original?" the man said in amazement, "You practice traditional medicine too?"

	"Practice?  I'm afraid I'm just an apprentice," Kasumi explained, warming as she began to 'talk shop', "As for the original manuscript, that has a place of honor in the hall of healing... in the village where I studied.  There have been many revisions over the years though, and the last one has an appendix on surgical applications for most of the techniques...."

	It was a solid hour before the two finished comparing notes, the 29 year old man's learning being matched, even surpassed, in many ways by the knowledge the 19 year old girl gained at the knee of healing sages he had only knew of by legend.  Unfortunately time and responsibilities crept upon them and forced them to go their separate ways.

	"Well, I have to get back to my office." the doctor said not without regret, "Perhaps I could borrow some of your library sometime Miss-?"

	"Tendo," Kasumi said as she blushed slightly, "Tendo Kasumi.  And what is your name sir?

	"Ono Tofu." the man smiled gently as he left, "I just hope you don't open up shop soon Kasumi-san, you could cost me my business."

	As Tofu left the shop a shadow fell across Kasumi's face.  The man was bright, funny, and quite handsome; under any other circumstances she would have eagerly courted him but....

	#In the end,# Kasumi thought morosely, #duty comes before happiness, and my sisters' happiness comes before my own.#

	With a heavier step, the matriarch of House Tendo left to continue grocery shopping.

******

	"What this?" Shan Pu (AKA Shampoo, thanks to a rather amusing pun that had caught on among the student body) asked as she, Ranma, and Akane beheld the various athletic clubs assembled as a phalanx before the school doors a week after their arrival.

	"I bid thee greetings fair ones!" proclaimed Kuno from his place on the schoolhouse steps, "I have informed the men before you of the Joketsuzoku warriors' most sacred law, that all men must prove themselves in honorable combat with thee ere they gain the honor of courting thee!"

	"You call _this_ Honorable Combat?!?" Akane yelled, all pretense of politeness gone in the face of such presumption, while Ranma gaped in disbelief and Shan Pu simply beat herself over the head with her satchel for her stupidity in revealing her precise background.  Then the latter bottled up her emotions and took in the scene with the eyes she used on the mock armies and political notes in the sandpits of the WarMistress' quarters.

	#These fools' only crime is listening to the highborn imbicile,# Shan Pu thought, #and I must be careful with object lessons if we wish to remain in good standing among a people this squeamish.  I'll probably need more cause than this to do anything serious to Kuno for that matter, damn.#

	"Is OK Ranma," she said as she barred the path of the outraged boy stepping forward to defend their honor, "we be handling this."  Her tone brooked no argument, and he knew full well the two girls had the athletes horribly outnumbered so he reserved his questions for later and hopped onto the fence to observe.

	"<Go easy on them Akane.>" Shan Pu cautioned under her breath (probably unnecessarily, for even in her worst rages she had little stomach for killing) as the Horde O' Hentais descended upon the two.

******

	"He's gotta be kidding," Daisuke muttered as he and Hiroshi witnessed the chaos from an upper window "even _he_ doesn't think anyone has a law like that."

	"Actually, if you want to be technical, they do." Nabiki said from behind them.

	"Are you saying," Hiroshi said after he and Daisuke recovered from their near-coronaries, "that anyone who beats up Shampoo gets to date her, Tendo-sempai?"

	"Simply put," Nabiki said after a moment's thought, "that custom actually requires marriage for the victor."

	The young woman waited for several moments while the two felt the beautiful girl climb ever farther out of reach with the news of the (presumed) marriage requirements and began entertaining warped plans to 'save' her for them- from the menace of Kuno-sempai and the assembled jocks before continuing.

	"On the other hand," she said offhandedly, "it must be noted what happens to any husband a Joketsuzoku maiden finds... incompatible."

	"Wha-what do you mean?" Daisuke stammered.

	"Well," Nabiki said cautiously, "I don't really want Shan Pu to find out I told you, but... let's just say that herbalism and field surgery are part of basic education where she's from."

	"You don't mean she'd...?" Hiroshi whimpered as the obvious implications sank in and he moved reflexively to protect his crotch.

	"Don't worry about that boys," Nabiki said in low tones as she smiled inwardly and twisted the proverbial knife, "that's the _last_ appendage her people would damage on prospective breeding stock...."

	<Authors Note: Should I go into details, examples, etc?>

******

	"I don't believe those perverts!" Yuka said as she and Sayuri walked Ranma and the two victors to class, "I mean Kuno-sempai wasn't _serious_ about that 'beat you to date you' madness was he 
Shampoo-chan?"

	"Him is knowing half-truth," Shan Pu explained as she shook her head in disgust, "man who is defeating Joketsuzoku maiden with honorable combat must marry; but maiden court who want and is having, how you say, right of refusal in such case.  For man who pick fight for only get wife, best thing him get from Joketsuzoku is refusal."

	"Maybe you need to go out with some normal boys," Sayuri advised while glancing significantly in Ranma's direction, "you know, clear up this confusion a bit."

	"Is good thought," Shan Pu noted as she looked at the boy in question with a wistful smile, "but Ranma taken."

Sayuri then looked at Akane in surprise as she blushed furiously and shook her head in futile denial.

	"Still," Yuka said as she and Sayuri shared a knowing chuckle, "we should try finding someone who wouldn't try the caveman approach and doesn't have a problem with you being Chinese to fix you up with... oh Hiroshi-kun!"

	The boy in question and his companion looked up at the familiar voice and immediately caught sight of the purple-haired barbarian.

	"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!"

Shan Pu, Yuka, Ranma, Sayuri, and Akane looked around in confusion for what elicited such unselfconscious terror in two teenage boys while the latter pressed themselves against the wall.

	"You've met Shampoo, haven't you?" Yuka asked somewhat lamely when the search for the arch-demon/invading army/rabid wolfpack proved fruitless.

	"Shan Pu." Daisuke corrected abruptly.

	"Her real name's Shan Pu." Hiroshi concurred instantly, "It's very rude to call her a bathroom product Yuka-chan, you really should apologize."

	"Is no problem," the girl in question reassured the terrified boys, "name no much bother Shan Pu.  Japanese name sound funny in Chinese ear so is no big thing.  For trouble Shan Pu anyway thank."

	"I-it was nothing Shan Pu-san." Hiroshi replied.

	"S-simple politeness Shan Pu-san, nothing more." Daisuke concurred before the two scurried off.

	"What eating them?" Shan Pu asked as they fled, "Them is no which you think nice Shan Pu is hoping?"

******

Unknown Port (Western Japan)

	"<Here piggy piggy piggy.>" the cook of the fifth rate cargo boat said as he crept around the hold with cleaver in hand.

	#I'll have my vengeance for this Saotome.# his quarry thought darkly as he crept away from the voice, #I swear no matter what it takes, I'll find you and make you pay for what you've done to me.#

******

End of the Beginning

***********************************************************

(Somewhat Extensive) World/Character Notes:

	Yes, Ranma's has been pushed into the background for the most part so far, sue me.  Once his problems start tracking him to the newly re-opened Tendo dojo that would logically change but a big chunk of the story centers around the Tendo sisters and Shampoo for obvious reasons.

	Shampoo's actually benefited from living with kids her own age both socially (she and Nabiki in particular have hit it off quite well), and in terms of skill given the rivalry she developed with Akane.  Her ability to think things through and deal more effectively with people are also a lot better here than in TOS due to contact with people that saw her as more than the Matriarch's Heir (indeed, she wishes her rivalry with Akane was a great deal friendlier than it is).  She find's Ranma... interesting (despite his frequent cluelessness), but not so much so that she would dishonor her de-facto sisters by pursuing him.

	Kasumi is in many ways still the sweet and gentle girl we all know, but there is a lot more overt will she'll exert when needed.  She is the head of the Tendo family and is willing to make that _very clear when push comes to shove.  She knows how to fight very well by ordinary standards (no healthy girl in the village has much choice in the matter), but her main training and first love is the healing arts both ancient and modern.  As head of her family she feels that all family responsibilities are ultimately her own, if neither of her sisters prove willing to put up with Ranma as a husband within a years time she fully intends to go to the altar herself (which is unfortunate, considering that handsome doctor who works nearby).

	Akane... well Akane's a nice enough kid who gets along with everyone save the guy one of her family is being forced to wed (the fact that he's an uncivilized and sexist bonehead doesn't help matters) and Shampoo.  Having considered herself a martial artist from her earliest youth, it was a rude shock to find herself on the absolute bottom rung among her peers upon her arrival among the Joketsuzoku, and Shampoo's attempts to protect her (initially at the behest of her Great-Grandmother) and give her some pointers (mainly by goading her into attacking and telling her what she did wrong as she lay in the dirt) gave her powerful motivation to improve her skills to the point where she handed the Ku Lon's heir an upset before their ninth birthdays and had the latter scrambling to keep ahead of her since.  Indeed, in terms of strict fighting skill she's marginally _better_ than Shampoo (who in turn has the edge in tactical/strategic skill, a cooler head under pressure, and to be blunt is somewhat brighter so it more than balances out) and unarguably Ranma's superior when the story begins.

	Nabiki is in many ways the most dangerous of the girls.  She is largely unchanged personality-wise from the original series aside from her closeness with her siblings and Shampoo (in whom she's found a kindred spirit in some ways) and a greater willingness to get her hands dirty.  Like Kasumi she underwent mandatory combat training as well as her own studies in other arts, in her case sorcery (for which she has vast talent).  No one, not even Shampoo, is entirely certain of the extent of her powers but she can definitely sense even inactive spells (such as Jusenkyo curses), create fire, cause plants to wither, perform astral projection (spirit-walking), and cast glamours capable of hiding her even from Ku Lon.  On the other hand she _probably_ can't control minds or devine truth from falsehood, and the Joketsuzoku's disdain for combat magic has rubbed off on her (small comfort considering she can probably take Kuno two falls out of three).  Fortunately, she's not _quite_ as skilled at manipulating others as she is in TOS, she had _no_ intention of having a large portion of the male student body on mortal fear of Shampoo for example.

	The rest of the surviving cast is pretty much unaltered.  Mousse is still hung up on Shampoo, Shampoo considers him a harmless pest, and only Nabiki's sworn word to her best friend has prevented anything... discreetly unpleasant from happening to him.  The rest are pretty much Ranma's baggage for the most part.

	ICYAW, I _do_ have a pet theory why the Joketsuzoku haven't been brought to heel by the PRC.  Far from being Passive Housewives(tm), the tribeswomen who end up in the wider world and their daughters tend to seek out ways to exercise their skills and help out the people back home.  This has been done in a distinctly organized fashion ever since the Manchu were seriously falling apart in the mid-1800s. By the time of the Cultural Revolution not only were there Joketsuzoku exercising power (either overt or otherwise) in big business, high finance, and organized crime throughout East Asia and the Pacific Rim; but they had established sleeper agents in the upper echelons of both the Kumontang _and_ the CCP.

What the council wants from the Tendo dojo (in addition to a place where the womenfolk would learn the merits of at least parts of Joketsuzoku philosophy) is an unobtrusive listening post and safehouse in notoriously homogenous Japan and possibly a way to break into the business community there.  Fortunately Kasumi sees no contradiction between that and restoring her father's school, unfortunately there are elements on the Council who really want to see them fail (if not die).

	So whaddaya think?

HTG